This one doesn't lunge at you. It walks you into the back alleys and lets the dread arrive on its own schedule. The horror here isn't a monster at the river's edge, it's Otoha at twenty-something doing war coverage in the hometown that ate Jiro when she was seven, and realizing she never actually left that day behind. The gunfire between the government and the dissidents stays mostly offscreen noise, because the real conflict is a woman getting separated from her squad and following something she already knows the shape of. Single episode, almost no spectacle, and it still lands like a punch to the sternum by the end. If you like your ghost stories built out of guilt instead of jump scares, this is the one you press on friends and then watch their face.

Otoha returns to the town where she grew up as a war correspondent, reporting on the conflict between the government and dissident forces. The trip brings her back to something she has never let go of. When she was seven, her friend Jiro disappeared, and the loss has stayed with her ever since. The town has long told stories of children vanishing along the riverbank. Cut off from the squad she travels with, Otoha begins to sense that someone is guiding her ever further into the narrow back streets. This single-episode horror OVA pairs a personal haunting with supernatural unease.